


For Love

by dustbunnyprophet



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Day 4, Fluff, Freeform, M/M, Romance, making art to deal with a broken heart, popoweek, popoweek 2k17, post Georgi Popovich/Anya
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 18:20:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10814259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustbunnyprophet/pseuds/dustbunnyprophet
Summary: Georgi and Michele skated for love. From the pain of heartbreak to the joy of falling in love. A story on art, love, and the ice, in six movements.Popoweek 2k17, day 4: art, prompt: "making art to deal with a broken heart"





	For Love

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is brought to you by putting Sia on repeat. Enjoy!

Georgi skated for love. He knew what everyone thought. He was not blind. In the long days of the Russian summer, when the sun shimmered on the cold surface of the ice Georgi saw it all. The amusement and scorn in the eyes of his teammates, the sigh of exasperation Yakov let out when he told him what he wanted to skate. He knew, he saw, but he did not care. Even as their eyes followed him while he choreographed his programs, he did not care. What were papercuts compared to the gaping wound which bled on his chest? What was the scorn of his fellows to the scorn of the heavens? 

Georgi knew they thought him a heartbroken fool. And maybe they were right. Maybe he was a fool after all. A fool for believing he was enough for Anya. That he would be a match for a goddess.

Mila had warned him, even before Georgi had mustered the courage to ask the ice dancer out, but he had fallen for Anya nonetheless. He had let himself believe that she would stay. Changing like the sea, and beautiful like a storm. How could he had ever dreamed to chain her to this shore? To keep her for himself? But the siren song had lured him in, and Georgi had dared to hope. 

She was a goddess, but on some days Georgi could not help the hatred from blossoming in his chest. He would blame her for leading him in this valley of despair. But on other days he laid the blame where it belonged. How could he begrudge the ocean for its tides, for its gentle waves, and its deadly maelstroms? She was the sea and the storm, and he, he was only a man. A small man with the presumption of believing he could match the gods. 

He was a blind fool, slowly bleeding out. And yet when night swallowed the light of day and the stars twinkled tiredly through the hazy early autumn sky, Georgi still allowed himself the privilege of missing her. And the ache that spread from the centre of his chest, spiralling out towards his limbs and carrying a coldness that would wrap around his bones was a fitting penance for his arrogance. Alone, in the darkness of his bedroom Georgi buried himself deep under the covers of his bed, and clutched the pillow like a lifeline. While tears streamed down his face. Tears of shame, tears of pain, tears of regret. Tears that tasted of salt, like the sea. 

And the waves on the shore were dark like her curls, and cold like her hands. Anya had left him stranded, and he deserved no less. 

Maybe Georgi was a fool. But he was an earnest one. 

For all of his contrition he knew he could not lock all these emotions inside the cage of his chest. So he donned his skates and poured them on the ice. Confessing his sins, his pride, his hubris. Seeking forgiveness. 

Seeking peace. 

The pain blossomed in his chest each time he skated his routines, but Georgi did not falter. He skated for love. For the love he lost. For the love he never deserved. For the love he carried locked in a cage of bones and heartstrings. For the love of truth and for the love of art. And for the quintessential tie between them. 

Because art was truth. And it was beauty, even at its most cruel. Like Anya.

So Georgi skated it all, every truth, every emotion that coursed deeply inside him. And if he sacrificed peace for the sake of it, it was a small offering at the altar of art. 

Without pain there was neither love nor truth. 

Georgi took whatever was left of his heart, all the jagged pieces, all the bleeding shards, and he wrote poetry with them. He sung to the ice and suffered. 

He skated for love, and bore no shame if the world saw his tears.

He cried them for love.

  
  
  


_ -Rostelecom Cup, free skate _ -

 

Michele skated for love. Georgi sat there on the bleachers and watched the Italian skater pour his heart on the ice. He was carving an ode to love. To the transience of it. To the end closing in like the dark maws of winter. Michele was skating for love, and all Georgi could think was how beautiful the copper haired man was. How emotions took life in each movement of his limbs. How pain and longing had been given flesh in Michele, and beauty kissed her blessing on his brow. 

Georgi watched him, feeling his own heart swell at the sight. At the subtle nuances the younger skater painted on the ice. At the evanescent picture he whispered into the cold air of the arena.

It felt like donning his skates and performing his routines. And at the same time it was nothing like it. Because this pain, this love, it was not for Georgi to fell. Michele was singing his silent melody to himself and the one who had torn the precious strings of love from his chest. He was not skating for Georgi, or the judges, or any of the people who watched him fly. 

Georgi felt like an intruder. And yet he could not tear his eyes away. 

He could not stop looking at Michele. At the beauty of his movements, of his emotions. 

At the beauty of him

  
  
  


_ -Europeans, short program- _

 

Georgi skated for love. But even as the blades glided across the ice in tune with the music, he found himself unable to feel it. There was no sharp stab of pain, nor the gaping slash which had bled and led Georgi through his programs for the first half on the season. No matter how hard he tried he could not summon the desperation that had roared inside after Anya had left. 

Even the thought of her name no longer tore through his fractured heart. And there was a new sense of loss, a different grief whispering in the wasteland of his heart. The last tide had swept away the pain, and only emptiness remained.

But Georgi had to skate. And so he did.

He knew the motions, the spins, the jumps, the connecting elements. Georgi could have skated it with a blindfold and no music, and still execute it to perfection. But the love that had inspired his program, the love he had lost, it was gone.

He fought against the queer wave of chills which was running down his limbs while he skated, and forced himself to finish the routine. It was hard, it was wrong. The crowd cheered nonetheless. 

And when later, Georgi walked into the locker room more defeated than he had ever felt before, in spite of the good results, he cried.

And his tears were not for love.

He cried them for himself.

  
  
  


_ -Europeans, free skate- _

 

Michele skated for love. Georgi had known it already, had been waiting for months for a chance to see the Italian skate this routine again. But when the copper-haired man began moving, Georgi noticed something had changed since the Rostelecom Cup. Where before, Michele had danced his heartbreak and pain, now his blades glided through a story of quiet acceptance. 

He spun and jumped with a different kind of beauty, that was no less captivating. And once again, Georgi’s chest was brimming with emotion. His heart beat loudly amongst the awe and desire for that routine to never end. If the music never stopped it would be too soon. Too soon. 

He watched in rapture Michele skating more than just love. He carved all the beauty of peace into the ice. And georgi could see the shy flight for freedom. Like a fledgeling Michele sung of first steps, of fears, and of all the small bruises that came from learning how to fall before you soar. He spoke of love that had learned to change, that had shed the teary mantle of autumn, endured the bitterness of winter, only to change. Green, small, different, but no less strong. And beautiful in the way only time could make things.

And Georgi watched, spellbound, Michele skating the same routine, and yet skating something else entirely at the same time. 

All too soon the music drew to its last notes, but Georgi’s eyes remained glued on him. Just like that time in Moscow, he found himself unable to cease looking at him. At the beauty of his skating. 

At the beauty of him.

  
  
  


_ -Europeans, exhibition gala- _

 

Georgi skated for love. Not for the pain of heartbreak. Not for the ache of loneliness. He skated for the love that could be, for the sudden realisation that had left him thunderstruck the night after the free skate. He glided through the expressive motions of his exhibition skate, and let his body shout it out. He let his arms and legs, the bending of his torso, he let it all plead for him. Plead for a love that could be. Plead fate for mercy.

He skated for the love that was blossoming in his heart in spite of all odds. Georgi danced for the way his heart had taken to flutter. For the beauty that had inspired these tender emotions, this breathless yearning. 

He drew lines and curves into the ice, chasing the shadows away as nothing but violet filled his gaze. The cold purple of the spotlights on the ice, and the bright amethyst in his mind’s eye. Georgi told his tale and wove his pleas within each movement. 

With a thundering heart he skated for love, for the flicker of hope that burned inside him. And the tears that pooled on the corner of his eyes were not sadness, but joy and hope, featherlight  and overwhelming at the same time.

And for the first time in a long while, Georgi cried with a smile, because they were tears of joy. 

He cried them for him.

  
  
  


_ -Worlds, free skate- _

 

Michele skated for love. And Georgi knew it. He knew it beyond what the Italian was singing with his blades, because Michele was pouring the emotions Georgi had found himself treasuring in the past two months. And the sight of him alone made his heart hammer against his breastbone. 

It had been barely more than hope on his part, and yet in spite of all odds it had happened. The heavens had heard his plea and graced him with something so precious, so rare, there were days Georgi found himself wondering if he was going to eventually wake up from this reverie. If he was going to gasp awake to a cold and empty world. To a life where he did not know the beauty of Michele’s smile. The warmth of his hands. The softness of his lips. The way his eyes shone in the golden light of a setting sun. 

He wondered if there was a bleak reality where the love Michele skated on the ice was not for him. But it was. Georgi could see it every single bend and twist of Michele’s body. The poem he sung, the music that beckoned him, it all spoke of finding love. 

Of finding each other.

It made him recall the long conversations through a phone screen, the endless text messages that were only a pale replacement for the sound of Michele’s voice and the feel of his fingers intertwined with his own. Of the little pockets of time they had managed to carve for each other. Of Michele’s cheeks growing red in the chill of the Russian winter. Of the sound of the sea and the smell of freshly brewed coffee when Georgi had flown to Naples.

He could see it all, and it was beautiful. It was everything. It was love.

Their love.

Budding, small, but growing with each day. Filling the cavity of Georgi’s chest with dreams of copper hair and amethyst eyes. With crushing embraces and teary goodbyes. With clutching at each other like a lifeline when they would meet again. 

Michele skated and all Georgi could think was the blush on his cheeks when he had called him Mishka the first time. And how Michele had struggled to come up with a nickname, ending up calling him Zhora like all the people close to him did. 

Or the first time he had told him  _ Ya tebya lyublyu _ and the first time he had heard  _ Ti amo _ . 

He watched him skate and thought of all the promises they had made, and all the countless kisses. Of the dreams and plans. He thought of how much he loved him. And when Michele finished his routine Georgi strode towards the entrance to the rink, following him each and every motions with his eyes. 

Until Michele was leaping into his arms. And Georgi squeezed him tight, burying his face in the crook of his neck. 

His heart was about to burst from his chest, and he never wanted to let go of him. He loved his so much. Everything about him, his passion, his temper, his jealousy, his bashful blushes. Georgi loved every inch of him. The beauty of his body, the beauty of his soul. 

He loved the beauty of him.

**Author's Note:**

> These two have been lowkey my OTP for quite a while. I can't believe I finally got around to writing a fic about them!  
> Tell me what you think! <3


End file.
